Good to the last drop.

I was re-watching Invader Zim again on Friday evening. IMPENDING DOOM 2!!! The part where Zim was banished to Foodcortia but quit... yeah..... IMPENDING DOOM 2!!! Ok.. its Monday...again

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPgXFZ366po

Its the only cartoon I still watch but it was "Banished" a while ago but may be returning...... yeah...
Definitely worth the time to watch. For a cartoon is is very mature in its ideas and humor.

Besides that fun there is the joining of the BFA.. about time probably but hay... better late than never.
Getting a updated version of my Pilots licence... which is very nice. (Edited for security). Even a cool little pin from BFA which I will probably lose if it isn't put in a pin case soon.

Seeing the money go out of my account for my passport... Always a good thing to see they got the docs. Waiting and waiting now.

Annual complete on Patturns Highperactive. Yay!.. Pics below.

Envelope drawn out and a gore by gore inspection. With 24 gores... that's the panel section from top to bottom or bottom to top with the square panels on it. They hold onto each section and walk up and down to look for rips, tears, holes, or other problems. They only pointed out where the fabric had been warped (wrapped too) around the red lines loop from pulling it too far down when venting the envelope to pack up. Will have to watch for that from now on.

Basket had tanks and floor pad removed ( also a lot of dirt from the mesa )  and inspected. My ( copyrighted ) wicker slicker still on. Only two tiny broken pieces of wicker that I know of that no one else will be able to find ( it still bugs me ).  I need two baskets.. one I can beat on and one to sit in my living room.. hahahahaha... Basket passed fine. No problems there. ( NOTE ) Did you know AERCO will hydrate your basket for you??? I didn't! That's cool! Wicker needs to be hydrated or it becomes brittle and breaks easily. I wash my basket down about three times a year.

Two Lindstrand 15 gallon tanks and one 10 gallon. Good to go.

I asked if my green turning vent line could be lengthened so it hangs a little lower at the basket so I can strap it up and out of my way. It was hanging about arms length above me for some reason.

See that curtain of yellow fabric back there... my baffle! That's to keep the hot air up in the top of the envelope. Color coded by Lindstrand USA! One off! They are so nice.

There was more going on. Watched while my burners were taken apart for a complete inspection and all my nozzles were checked for obstructions ( I thought I had an obstructed nozzle ) ... none found. Ill get a picture of them once I clean them up again. They are very dirty.

In the end everything was checked out and passed cleanly. Seven years old and going strong. Now that I have In Czech ( Terpsnickery ) Highperactive will see less hours but that means longer life. Probably the last envelope I will buy unless I live a long long time or I start flying a hell of a lot more.. you never know.

I think I was going to do cleanings this weekend and forgot. OOPS!

Oh.. yeah.. It rained and was flippen cold out Saturday so that was a no go. Forgot.

Besides the above I was able to pick up a nice pair of Vans sneakers for work. My old Walmart type are not being sold any more and the last pair lasted only two months... not good. Went to the mall for the first time in ages and saw how many shops had packed it in and moved out and how few have replaced them.

The overhead for mall space has to be high and with on line shopping.. how can you make money?

Still working on the plans for the trip to England...more on that next weekend... great suggestions from friends. It will be a hoot to chat with friends and family when we get over there face to face.

Lots of fallout 4 since it was raining and my "in house" work was pretty much done. I'm so far along on F4 that I am now just messing around with things to see what will happen. I expect I will not touch it for a week now as its gotten boring and I have other things to do.

One of those is software for Ipad ballooning. I got another suggestion for a different app... so far I like the first one better but I have yet to play with both at the same time and see what happens and how each handles all the data.

I wonder what fun this next week is going to dish out......

Enjoy the remainder of your sunday!

Dawn of a new week

Lets see here..........

Compare and Contrast........ I used to hate that statement. We will return to that in a moment.

It was a week.... When you work in the govt or in the military you learn this quickly. You wait a lot and then you do a lot in a short period of time. Rarely do you do things slowly or in specific order.

Its usually something like.. order your supplies.. wait... get part of the supplies...wait... get more items... wait... find out that some items you need aren't in the package... reorder... wait... stage and install.

I know it happens in the real world also and that there are limitations there to as to how things work. Yeah. Railing against reality again. I hate waiting and having multiple things pending as they either get forgotten or get mixed up. Any ideas on how to keep projects separate. Yeah me too. They mostly don't work.

A couple more things. Ordered some table tops from IKEA. One arrived via Fed Ex damaged... Then reported that and had to wait almost two weeks for the replacement table top.. which Fed Ex damaged. Called IKEA.. Yes they were sorry .. yes they would replace it.. No.. shipped same way.. why??? Its just going to get damaged again and I will have to wait another two weeks to be disappointing. Change the damn shipping company or reinforce the corners of the damn boxes.

Not that they cost a lot but sheesh!

The high point of my week was at last getting my passport processed.

I have had the docs done for a year and sat on them. Bad enough that when I got to the post office to process them, get my picture done and pay I had to redo the whole doc package again. No worries as it was hardly over run with people and the ladies behind the counter were terribly nice. Got my picture taken, Then rewrote out the docs, finding two errors and then about 10 minutes of question and answers and it was done and ready to go with even a display of how my passport docs would show up and about when. Seriously nice people... Now to wait for them to arrive.

Next is get the family dragged out and get it done... though now I can do their docs again here so I do not have to do it while wasting any ones time at the post office.

I did also this week order some extra long usb and apple charging / data cords. Nice, quick, colorful, functional...

The throwback braided cloth sheath it nice. Three tangerine and three black/white.

No flying for me this weekend but I did go out and help put up KKisses with Takach Another Breeze for some engagement photos for one of our crew members. Good fun and some breakfast after.

Here are some of the shots.. but not all. You will have to go to my web site for the others.

Warming up the local atmosphere.

 A View to a Joe.

 Put a ring on it.

 A short but novel trip.

Splitting hairs. Probably Murray of World Balloon Co. Fame. Hi Murray!!!

Something like 290 shots and about 25/35 good interesting shots.

So back to compare and contrast......

Which is larger? No, I am not asking crew or Pilots because they know already. Shhhh.

 And some of the pieces and part of a hot air balloon which always draw my eye.

Head envelope with wide straps instead of cables.

Crown centering line structural attachments to the top of the envelope.

Carabiners.

Burner bits. Czech company burners. Very pretty. Kubicek.

Made in Italy. Fuel Hose.

Crown pulley.

Red line but it is white and blue line.

Tiny quick shut off handles.

Some.. a few.. not all... but nifty.

Now I am looking at my over grown weedy front yard and in the back there is the pond and the invasive mint all over. I have to deal with both. Not happy about either. Both are a pain in the butt.

More mulling will have to be done here but now its time for other things.. like getting ready for this next week and items that are more important.. like Fridays upcoming annual inspection of Highperactive.

Weee.... Its Sunday.. go have some toast and tea. Or for me. Toast and coffee..

Easters Blessings

As we all with children either race off to church or start early on the Easter chocolate binge.............

Christos Voskrese!

With older children now partially out of the house its a more sedate and achy move to find coffee and a chair... commiserate on aches and pains and drown them in coffee. My alteration of a normal Sunday has been to lay a blanket over my lap and let the dog pass out on it. She decided not to after twice jumping up and laying down. Not good enough today.

Granted that limited my coffee intake in a serious way. Ah well....

The week was nuts. The last few days with Emily in the house were a lot of fun but the silence after was sad. But it was fun while it lasted and she will be here today for an in-house Easter egg hunt ( filled with healthy snacks ) and then Easter bread and ham, Polish / Czech style.

Saturday we did get to fly but it was close.....

We had gotten set up near Kurt and beside Ted and started to inflate since there was no wind what so ever only to see Kurt have to launch quickly and with some horizontal movement into the air. The gusting came up and we were all dishing in. Me, standing, had to think about this. East at speed was a no go... but was there something above us that would take us West.... We watched Kurt and he did start West when he was about 200 ft up... So we launched and we launched like a rocket.

Reasons to do this were to clear quickly the other balloons around us and to not get any more East push than we had to. We pushed a lot of hot air and sprang into the air and upward around 700 fpm. A good hold on the turning vent spun us 360 plus and we stopped the ascent at about 200 feet above ( it was real quick ) and moved West North West nicely.

So this was an impromptu flight review so I decided I wanted to cruise at altitude toward the West but with some South so I could get to a nearby arroyo ( a big one ) and drop into it to land and take off.

Most of that worked exactly as it should have. When we got to the dog leg of the arroyo ( it goes from West to East then turns a 90 degree right  or South then runs till it does another 90 degree turn left, East again ) we got the wind coming down that arroyo in our faces at about 100 feet up and that caused a backing up so I popped up and got back to the right track to the last 90 degree. Dropping into that and having the breeze loop us into a smooth left turn a was excellent. We dropped in and skimmed the ground and touched, skipped, touched, missed a huge bolder by the wiggle of the basket, then came to rest. ( picture above of said boulder )

We waited till Ted got close and popped back up to his level. Still a bit far away but good enough to take pictures. Wow.. Camera wouldn't focus. Nice. Since we were done with the review by then Eric took the controls to have some fun tracking Ted while I fiddled with the camera. Stupid A/C - M switch had gotten bumped. Easy fix and I could take more pictures. Sadly. At that time the winds pretty much died out leaving us becalmed ( 1.5 mph ) over a neighborhood with little for landing places but the roads.

Eric nicely dropped us onto a road we thought we could be taxied to a cul de sac but that was not happening after we were on the ground. So I jumped out for Nick to have a bit of a flight while Eric took Highperactive up and over some power lines to get closer to the park Ted had landed in nearby.

He did and we taxied him over a fence and we laid out the balloon next to Teds and had a nice grass pack away. Teds great team helped us pack up too. Very nice of them.

Back to the field and a lot of chatting later... we made it home just before 12pm.

I tested a Hot Air App for the Ipad for tracking your flight and flight data. It worked wonderfully and I now have that to use during my flights. It shows the map of the area and all the zones to avoid ( thank you Fiesta ). It also tracks all your movements, speeds, weather and such.

The high point of the week other than Saturdays flying was our acceptance into the 2017 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. Morghan got his in the morning and I got mine a while after but couldn't see it because I was working.  FAN TAS TIC! Its going to be very interesting.

So that was it. Tomorrow a new week of things I have no clue about....

Here are some pictures from this weekend... Some from me and some from Ted and one from Kurt. Ted had a better angle on me than I did on him ( sun wise so.... )

Sunrises...

Our distant Southern Cousins.. Rainbow Ryders and World Balloons Passenger companies and also the Riestra balloon flying.

 My fav no.1 for the day. While testing the focus of the camera I pointed it at my Ipad with app running and got Eric's reflection. Nice.

More friends flying with some Top Gun Competitors mixed in to our North.

Down in the valley... the valley so low... OK.. Arroyo. Where we were moments before.

A crop of Ted making hand gestures out of his basket... was he doing shadow puppets? Indicating his movement? Just had to stick something out there....

And here are some Ted took that were awesome ..very awesome.. Thanks again Ted!

Tracking Ted as we slowly pushed South West in search of a landing area.

Up and over Patturns Highperactive and her cool crown. We are much higher than this picture looks.

On the ground after. When did they have time to cut up so much while I was working to put things away.. I don't know. hahahaha.

In the arroyo. This is the last part of the West East running section. I believe this was taken by Kurt as he was in front of us. Not Ted. A beautiful picture.

Over the side of Teds basket and behind us as we stand in the arroyo sure in the knowledge that IF there was a flood of water we could be away long before it got to us... hahahaha... yeah.. water.. flood.. sure.

I love that my friends were in the air and having as much fun as I was. Now I need to win that lottery so that I can buy them all high megapixal DSLRs. These are amazing shots from CELL PHONE CAMERAS! Yeah! They  ( Ted, Eric, Kurt ) take amazing pictures. But you cant blow them up. Hense the need for DSLRs. LOL.. or this thing below... but I would have to win a big lottery because they cost 16,000 dollars!!!

http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/what-the-production-light-l16-52-megapixel-camera-with-16-built-in-lenses-looks-like

16 lenses and 52 megpixels. WOW BABY. also focal plane editing on the fly or on post production. Someday......

So that was this week and weekend... many thing going... Oh yeah forgot.... here... look at these things...

Clips from the Kodak 360.

Dropping gently into the arroyo. Missing the boulders.

Looking up before relaunching into the air...

Eric and Nick getting taxied into the park...

Kurt found this window sticker being sold with Patturns Highperactive right there plain as day. Thank you Kurt!!!!

My bag of "Get Outta My Airspace" Pins that traveled to the East coast with Ted and Eric for a safety seminar. Sold some too! They are my "for sale" pins so I can keep having pins made. 5 dollars each for a 1.5 inch cool one of a kind pin.

The Hot Air app on my iPad and my flight track... wiggle wiggle wiggle.

A good week all in all.....

Happy Easter... Enjoy the day and upcoming week!

A Midsummer's Night WEEK!

A Shakespearean week in the round.

Preface: Two older people.
Location: House and environs.
Protagonist: one 14 month old girl.
Extras: Toys everywhere and one Son.

But first:

So we have been baby sitting our Granddaughter since Wednesday night. I could leave it there, refer you to the damage reports, localized earthquakes and other natural disasters and walk away but.....

Its been nothing like that.

Other than we are so old and set in our ways that inserting a 14 month old into the "life of relaxing" we have flings things into the air. Nothing bad. We are just on her schedule..if you can call it a schedule.. more like flexible guidelines... We took the time off so that we could do everything and also survive the lack of sleep and the aches and pains a little wild child will inflict in her moving from thing to thing at speed.

A vacation from a vacation.

She has been a dream. Nothing like a normal child. More like a little person whom wants to know all the things right now ...or at the same time. Photogenic and funny.... happy and frustrated by our lack of alacrity.

Its been fun taking pictures of her while she uses all her facial features to emote to us. We only have her until Tuesday or so then parents will be back and we wont see her until Sunday.

She has been in front of a camera since she was born. She is cuter than all get out.

Low light shots are impossible to get in focus as she moves so quickly. Here she has her own keyboard to use, though she would rather mine. She understands tapping a screen to stop a video and also how to turn the sound up and down. Calling Australia has been foiled a few times so far.

Full light and a nice focused shot. She has some great poses and faces. This is because she thinks Im crazy because I was taking a picture instead of getting the thing she wanted from the table. Dog butt photobomb.

Here she is reclining to watch Trolls again on the couch. Alligator toy nearby. Soft blanket wrapped. She then leaned against me leaving a drool line as her head moved to a more comfortable position against my chest. Baby drool is just fine. I think everything in the house has some drool on it now.. hahaha.

She is now off to her mid morning after breakfast pre early lunch nap. She has her priorities placed perfectly.

During all this and because I refused to miss one bit of our time with her  I didn't go flying but it was too windy to fly for me anyway. I did buy some music that I wandered across while the baby was watching movies or playing with her toys. Vangelis... of which I have most of the albums purchased already but these were remastered and cheap. Then I found some oldies albums that were mixed and bought those. Nostalgia big time.

Surprising how much memories are all attached to music in my head. One song can open a door on so many memories and memories are pretty clean to my brain, not unlike flashes of pictures are when surfing your photo album.

Other than watching the baby its been surfing the web.... we did go to the Aquarium which was fun but Emmers was not very interested in the whole thing cause you cant touch the fish. Perhaps we will revisit that some other time. Its too windy to go out to the park today so we will try that tomorrow.

Other items coming up. ... INVADER ZIM is coming back!!! That is worth it all there. We have not watched that yet but maybe Emmers needs to see the early versions... yeah.

One of my favorite pictures of Patturns In Czech ( Terpsnickery) The contrast of the yellows and whites and black and then the blues. SWEET!

Many rally's coming up here soon. Angel Fire and Erie in Colorado then maybe another between then and Fiesta. Still waiting on our acceptance to Fiesta. Long wait this year due to their processing process. Wont hear anything till next Friday.


I was asked for directions to the launch site in Rio Rancho this weekend.......

It was not good enough so I had to go find this one to post.

It was still too windy though some did fly.

Saw these on the web and had to clip them. We are looking at the below for sound instead of smoking in the office... hahahaha... funny.

And less that is said about clothing choices lately in and out of Walmart..... woooo...

Seriously funny....

Go enjoy life... within parameters... or as is said.. everything in moderation.

I've been moderating.. ready for so excesses..LOL

Okay.. not quiet yet.

Have a wonderful week and then Wonderful Easter.